Contents

Introduction

In laymen's terms, XvMC allows the video card (Nvidia ones in this case), to handle processing of certain video features (CPU heavy ones). It takes the load off the CPU, thereby reducing processor requirements for video playback. It is often used in HDTV video playback scenarios.

This guide is to allow Nvidia video card owners to enable XvMC support for MPlayer. (as the default MPlayer build for Arch Linux does NOT support XvMC). It involves using the Arch Build System (or ABS) to recompile MPlayer.

This guide is aimed for the Arch Linux beginner. NOT for the Linux beginner.

Known Limitations

There are a few things you need to be aware of:

The current implementation of XvMC for Nvidia cards does NOT support anything other than MPEG1/2 videos. Do NOT bother trying other formats like Xvid, it will NOT work.

ffmpeg12mc is the only codec you can use with XvMC. Attempting to try any other codec will result in a FATAL error message.

You can NOT use XvMC simply by running a desktop link calling for gmplayer. You MUST use the command line.

The proprietary Nvidia driver is required for XvMC to work.

XvMC is buggy and you may encounter issues under some situations.

What do I need?

An Nvidia video card that is known to support XvMC. (ie: GF4MX, GF FX series, GF6xxx and GF7xxx series. Any other older cards will not work.)

Nvidia proprietary driver installed and working.

How do I add XvMC support to MPlayer?

Firstly, you need to open a terminal or command line window and log in with root permissions. So type:

su

...and enter your root password.

Next, you need to install the required dependencies. Type this:

pacman -S cvsup libxvmc unzip libcaca

cvsup is required for downloading the source and the ever important PKGBUILD file for ABS.libxvmc is the required library for compiling XvMC support.unzip is required during the build process. To uncompress required files called by PKGBUILD.libcaca is a dependency that is required for compiling MPlayer.

The 2nd step is to sync your PC with Arch Linux's CVS. So type:

abs; cd /var/abs/extra/multimedia/mplayer

Depending on your internet connection speed you may need to wait a while. When it finishes, it will point you to the /var/abs/extra/multimedia/mplayer directory. (The location of where PKGBUILD file is.)

The 3rd step is to edit the PKGBUILD file to include XvMC support. PKGBUILD is basically a configuration file used by ABS to simplify with customization of source-based software in Arch Linux.